The RIAA sees the face of evil, and it's a 12-year-old girl...

[Bungleau]

Originally posted by Faceman: the thin line many people choose to cross is the line between "listening" and "copying" Unlike technical manuals, car specs, ... you don't use music for something most people conceive as personal gain. Simply to entertain yourself when you're at home.

True for many, but not all. How many musicians listen to someone else's music to learn how to play it? I just about wore out Rush's Moving Pictures LP (side 1) in my early drumming days. Now, I never made money playing drums, but others do make money playing music. Check the weekend bar scene and you'll see. And few of those bands get asked to do original music... it's covers of other peoples' tunes. I believe that legally, there's probably a copyright issue in there somewhere as well

Have a bit of CCR in the background while reading a good book. Now while it would be LEGAL to listen to it on the radio it is apparently ILLEGAL to copy it (via P2P, tape-sharing, radio-recording). Now while it is LEGAL to read a book at a library it is ILLEGAL to copy it and take it home. It seems to me that you don't pay for the (copyrighted) content but rather for the CONVENIENCE to look at it whenever you want. This is what certain people (including me) don't get.

Someone at the library paid for the material. They may or may not have a redistribution arrangement (gonna have to ask my friend the librarian about that one). Someone at the radio station paid for the songs. They let you listen to them for free and feed you advertising to cover their costs and make money.

They pay for the material, and you can use it (read/listen) at your convenience, if they're interested in providing it. With few exceptions, you don't get to pick the songs, and they don't run the same songs all day.

@radio recording: what exactly is the legal status on recording songs from the radio or movies from TV with your VCR. Would somebody who taped every episode of "Friends" get busted? And if not would it be legal to download from a webRadio station? And if so where's the difference to P2P except that they don't offer everything at once but one by one on a chosen playlist?

Recording songs from the radio is prohibited as I understand it, but the sound recording is so poor (compared to the real thing) that it's a quite inferior product. So the industry doesn't worry too much about it; the illegal copy is nowhere near as good as the original. With digital music, though, it's identical... now there's a problem. Guess they should have been thinking about this when DAT came out.

@scanning cars: If somebody had one of these glorious StarTrek replicators and started replicating CDs he'd probably be sued by the RIAA. What if he started replicating Ferraris? He'd probably be sued by Ferrari. What if he started replicating chocolate bars? Would he be sued by Nestle, Lindt or Unilever? And more on the real side: I like sandwiches. Really I do. Now assume I go to Subway(tm) every other day. And after I have developed a taste for the famous Subway Club I want to save some money because 6$/sandwich is a bit much for my wages. So I buy another Subway Club Sandwich and take it home. I carefully disassemble it and find out every ingredient. Now I go to the grocery store pack myself up and at home I make myself another sandwich. In fact I continue to make these sandwiches myself and only go to Subway when I happen to pass by with enough money in my wallet. How many of you would now call me a thief?

Do you think Subway sells sandwiches? Or do they sell meals built in front of your eyes, to your specifications, whenever you want them, without getting your hands or kitchen dirty? The sandwiches are a tiny aspect, even though in the sandwich industry, sandwich design is apparently a highly technical topic. What goes on top of what has a dramatic difference in how the sandwich is perceived. Or so they say...

Is reverse engineering of sandwiches prohibited by law? I honestly have no clue. I do believe that if you started selling your version of their sandwich, they'd have a discussion with you in front of some lawyers or a judge. I suspect that your cost would be more than theirs for producing the sandwiches, even if it's only measured in terms of unused food going bad. They give you two tomato slices per side; what do you do with the rest of the tomato?

Why is this like MP3 sharing? + Because I deprive Subway of business they otherwise might have had although they would have never sold me three sandwiches a day. + Because Subway has created this recipe and I'm constantly using it for my personal gain without paying them for it + Because Subway has no additional cost for the sandwiches I make. + Because I can share the recipe I found with my friends and they can start making their own sandwiches too costing Subway even more business and I will maybe get some recipes from them and maybe even a "kewl dude" from them even if it's not via AIM.

If you sell the sandwiches, then it's your own personal gain. If you just eat them... it's gain, all right, and it's personal, but it's not monetary.

As for the recipe, think about all that they're selling. You're not getting the rest of it.

And you are paying someone (unless you live on a farm or grow your own vegetables, meat, dairy, and grain) for the materials. And the materials tend to go bad in short order (with the exception of Twinkies), so you can't just stock up on them and use them later.

Your friends can make sandwiches, but remember, they still don't get the rest of what Subway provides.

When you steal music, you are getting everything the artist provides. That's part of the reason why I agree with Luvian that the RIAA needs to provide more than just music. It's also why I believe that the only sustainable competitive advantage for a company is its personnel -- the people who work there. Anything else -- technology, process, procedures, patents -- can be duplicated or bought. It's the people and what they bring that makes the difference, and that can't be bought. It has to be earned.

You've almost got me on the sandwiches, but I'm still not convinced.

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Bungleau: And providing a serial number? Copy the book or art, copy the serial number. Now you get to find a way to protect against theft that way. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I think you misunderstood what I meant. The serial would be to allow people to register to a website and get stuff. Those serial can only be used to register one account. Someone can very well copy the product, but he won't be able to register to the website if the serial was already used.

That's rewarding people who bought the product, and it's a lot more efficient than suing those that got it for free.

[Bungleau]

But what do you register? Just a number? What prevents someone else from just using the same number? User ID and password? I gave that to my friend as well. Register to a specific machine through CPU ID? What happens in an upgrade? Track by TCP/IP address? We use DHCP, so there's a range.

I don't believe there's a simple and easy way to ensure compliance with today's technology. You can get back to using hardware dongles that can't easily be copied, but that's incredibly expensive compared to the street value of a CD, for example. And if you needed a dongle for every CD... imagine the hassle of trying to keep track of them.

I think it's a good idea in theory, but I don't see where the practice holds out.

[Faceman]

Originally posted by Bungleau: Is reverse engineering of sandwiches prohibited by law? I honestly have no clue. I do believe that if you started selling your version of their sandwich, they'd have a discussion with you in front of some lawyers or a judge.

Sure they would. As they should have with people (a.k.a bootleggers) who SELL copyrigthed music.

Originally posted by Bungleau: If you sell the sandwiches, then it's your own personal gain. If you just eat them... it's gain, all right, and it's personal, but it's not monetary..

It's as monetary as with music. My gain is to have a cheaper access to what I want. Listening to music is no monetary gain per se like eating a sandwich isn't.

Originally posted by Bungleau: And you are paying someone (unless you live on a farm or grow your own vegetables, meat, dairy, and grain) for the materials.

And I pay someone for CD-Rs my CD burner, internet access, power,... (even a regular burglar pays for his crowbar and his gloves )
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The point is that I steal their valued recipe while I do the work myself. As I do with MP3. Only that the work for copying a song is a lot easier than making a sandwich.
Why this IS ACTUALLY different from MP3
Because Subway generally doesn't charge for the recipe (which isn't THAT great) but for the work. So why do the musicians? Because coming up with the recipe is the hard part not bruning/pressing a CD. Copyright laws however were not made to give artists the power to hide their works from public and only show them for a fee BUT to ensure the public sees them and many more by blocking others to make money with it. They are there so nobody steals your invention/recipe/song screws you over and gets rich while you get nothing/nada/zero. If I listen to your song on the radio I'll never get more than you. Even if I copy it and listen to it all day long I will NEVER get more out of it than the actual artist. Unless I decide to USE that song to sell it or to write another one or to use it in a speech I will never get rich by listening to that song. I've just saved some money like I did at Subway.
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I think that monetary gain issue is the main focus. If someone downloads 5000 songs from the net to listen to them at home and to have friends marvel at his huge collection but never actually sells any of them or uses them otherwise to gain money, then it is rather unlikely he will see the wrong of his ways. He simply took what was there for the taking and conveniently it is still there for the taking for everyone else. So in his mind "nobody gets hurt". If he starts selling the stuff he will soon realize that he is majorly screwing over the songwriters by selling stuff he didn't create but just took and he will of course be puzzled about screwing the kids he sells to because "wasn't that stuff free for the taking?".
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So in the end it IS like my Subway example except that Subway does not, never did, and never will care if I make my sandwiches at home because their main providing is something else. Maybe they would care if I had a coke-machine at home and a Sub-O-matic a.k.a SubAmp (just download a recipe from the Internet and this amazing machine will make you a Sub) but that's something for Picard&Co who have no money anyway.

ADD] Uh, you just made it to Half-Orc. Now I'm scared

[ 09-12-2003, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: Faceman ]

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Bungleau: But what do you register? Just a number? What prevents someone else from just using the same number? User ID and password? I gave that to my friend as well. Register to a specific machine through CPU ID? What happens in an upgrade? Track by TCP/IP address? We use DHCP, so there's a range. I don't believe there's a simple and easy way to ensure compliance with today's technology. You can get back to using hardware dongles that can't easily be copied, but that's incredibly expensive compared to the street value of a CD, for example. And if you needed a dongle for every CD... imagine the hassle of trying to keep track of them. I think it's a good idea in theory, but I don't see where the practice holds out.

This is in't a theory, it's a proven practice. Just take a look at Bioware's forum, you can't post for a game forum if you didn't register your serial, and then once you register it, that serial won't be accepted anymore by the website.

Same things for Maxis and the SIMS. You can register your serial on their website to visit the forums and get goodies, and once you register a serial, nobody else can register it.

And yes, when you register your serial you also get to chose a login and password. The serial is then associated with your account and no one else can use it.

[Larry_OHF]

New info on the 12 year old girl...!

Net music firms, DJ, offer to pay girl's fine

[Tancred]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Comparative sales figures are proof and are more proof than what you are offering. Also some very detailed industry inside exit polls also back this up. Not to mention the the amazing coincidence between the massive drop in sales and the proliferation of file-swapping and bootlegging. Sorry that I dont have any exact statistics handy, Luvian. If I find something concrete besides my own 5+ years expirience in the retail music business and countless conference calls on how and why our sales were dropping, I'll post them.

This is the thing - the world moves on. When an industry no longer works to the wishes of the consumer, it is in danger of becoming obsolete. When an industry becomes obsolete, demand drops. When the demand drops, the industry shrinks. Physical media is becoming pointless - especially with the development of portable downloadable music players. The powers behind music production and promotion have become used to having almost total dominance in this field, but that does not mean they cannot ignore the will of the consumer - otherwise, a point will be reached and their bubble will burst.

I draw a parallel between the current wave of media piracy and the US's prohibition laws early last century. The result? Bootlegging, and bootleggers! And, in the end, the US decided to repeal those laws, for very good reasons.

Now, this isn't exactly the same situation. The music labels aren't banning music, they're just controlling the price for it. But they have got to find a way to change and adapt with the times - and respond to the will of the customers they are losing. Just putting a lid on things and deluding themselves into thinking they can beat this with lawsuits is folly. If they don't fall in and respond to the will of the consumer then they will die out.

Shame about your job, Chewbacca. But when they invented cars, I'm sure every horse breeder felt the same way.

[605]

Originally posted by harleyquinn: Sorry, but while I agree with you that CDs need to come down in price, the fact that they cost too much does not justify theft. I think cars cost too much, you need $10,000 just to get a cheap one. So does that mean I can just go steal one off the lot, because hey, it's the car companies fault for charging so much? Nope! Same goes for music. You're stealing if you download music you didn't pay for. If it's music that an artist posts for you to get for free (which some do) than that's one thing, but otherwise, it's stealing. The artist did not tell you that you could have that music, so you are not "helping their art". While there are some artist that do make lots of cash, there are others that break even if they make anything. For example, did you know that because of signing a bad contract, the GooGoo Dolls were losing money until recently? That's because many new artists are required to pay for their own touring and promotional expenses, so that's why, even though they were selling records like crazy, they themselves were seeing almost no money. So anyone that was downloading their songs were actually hurting them by denying them even more money that is rightfully theres. Sorry people, life's not fair, things cost more than sometimes they should (gas comes to mind). Want to stick it to the music industry? The answer's not in downloading music, that's stealing, and the law's on their side. The answer is to stop buying cds, and write a letter to the companies telling them that you will not be buying any more music until the prices come down. Then get your friends and family to do the same. If they can't sell CDs, the prices will fall to entice people to buy more, simple economics.

I Like your idea about writing companies and all. I really do [img]smile.gif[/img]
As far as comparing music to cars tho... the difference here is that a lot of the artists that have songs being traded online SUPPORT them being downloaded. Do I need to remind everyone about how Napster had free concerts set up in their benefit that featured bands that were HUGE at the time? Bands and music fans alike support file sharing. But, cars are a bad parallel to draw to sharing music, because cars aren't art. Let's use a more accurate comparison: books and artwork.

How many authors do you think are pissed off that their books are being transcripted and shared on kazaa for free, or all the pictures that are available to download? And how many stories and poems and quotes are being passed around without even giving the author proper credit, not just online but all over the world? Plagerism(sp?) and blatent stealing of ideas and stories, how often does this happen? How many art pieces are scanned and used all over the world every day for free? Pictures taken and edited in Photoshop and used to create 'new' art. Do we hear any of these book editors whining or artists complaining that they're not being treated fairly? I seriously doubt that you've paid for every single piece of art that you have on your computer, and I doubt even more that you can name or give proper credit to the artist who created it.

Music isn't that different except that the people who run the industry are more greedy than other industries. I'm not sure why... but it seems to be true. Regardless of what the artists say, the music industry is out to shut these file sharing programs down, even if the musicians themselves support it.

On a side note; Does anyone know the name of the person who wrote 'Itsy Bitsy Spider?' Seriously, anyone? Can anyone at all tell me who wrote some of the greatest nursery rhymes that have been sung for hundreds of years, and will continue to be sung for hundreds more? The stories that have been passed down for generation after generation; The Three Little Pigs and Humpty Dumpty and Old King Cole and The Princess and the Pea and Goldilocks... who wrote these? No one remembers anymore. But someone did write them, and shared them so that other people could appreciate them and remember them too. They wrote them and shared them not for money, but because they loved doing it and loved retelling the stories over and over. That's what should be important to the artists, having their music heard and appreciated and remembered... anyone complaining about not getting paid or whining that file sharing is so horrible is in the industry for the wrong reasons. These artists now have a way to have their music heard by people around the world in a matter of days, where it used to take years to get books printed and distributed and have the same availability, and they complain about it?

However; I don't see book companies picketing libraries to be shut down for sharing their stuff for free. I've never once seen an art gallery that went out of business because the starving artists weren't selling their paintings. (remember that phrase? 'starving artist?' ever wonder WHY they were called that? [img]tongue.gif[/img] )The general impression I've gotten has been that these other artists are more pleased with seeing their message or art or story or poem spread to more people, rather than they are with selling it to everyone who likes it. And their managers or editors or whatever seem to understand that. Musicians seem to be content to be out playing concerts and making music and reaching the fans and doing what they love for a living, and even without the record industry, I'm sure they'd still tour and continue to do it.

It's just that the record execs. have gotten so used to there being no competition that they got comfortable and cocky and raised cd prices to insane heights so they could live a little MORE comfortably, buy a few MORE cars. The record stores had no choice but to jack up THEIR prices in turn just to keep making the same profit as they were before, so they could afford to live. Music fans got pissed and decided they'd had enough and were going to take it into their own hands. They had the technology, they'd been dubbing records to tapes and tapes to tapes and most recently burning cds. All these means to record music they had access to had already existed, they didn't CREATE the cd burners or the dual cassette decks to dub tapes. But what else did the people who created these things think they'd be used for? (duh) So fans wanted more than the selection of music their close friends had, they wanted more to copy than their older brother's AC/DC tapes, and someone had the idea to send files a few song files to a friend in an email. That friend did the same to someone else. Sooner or later, this idea caught on and Napster came into being to save everyone the trouble AND expand their options. We all know what happened after this, right?

It's been going on for years already, and who reading this DOESN'T own a few dubbed movies or tapes or burned cds?

The record industry didn't care until it became a threat, and ever since they've been trying to fight a battle against something they knew was happening all along, and knew was only getting worse. It's their own faults for letting it get this far, and now that they see their fancy lifestyles slipping away and they know they messed up, they're clinging desperately to everything they know and hoping this somehow fixes it all.

I can't blame the stores that sell the music, and I do feel bad that so many people lost their jobs over this. But, in all honestly that's the way it's going to be. Even if all the free file sharing programs get shut down, they're already popping up new ones, and file sharing programs that require small payments to download songs. Record stores would have closed anyway sooner or later, so don't blame it all on the people sharing files. Because like I said, we've been doing it since the first tape deck with a 'record' button hit the stores, and we'll keep doing it as long as technology allows.

And that is the LONGEST post I ever typed anywhere, so I'm shutting up for now. Thanks for reading.

[ 09-13-2003, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: 605 ]

[Larry_OHF]

Related info.

TechTV lists an updated hit-list of ISPs on alert, and the names of people about to get in trouble. Other useful info to be found here as well.

And this is quoted from a website that I cannot tell you the name of, because I do not want to be accused of giving anyone access to illegal websites. I found this an hour ago while searching for news. This is a copy-paste of the front page news that they have on their website.

"******" code blocks RIAA / MPAA Posted by Jon Newton in Industry News on July 24, 2003 at 10:17 AM When "******" interviewed EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) spokesman Fred Von Lohmann, the RIAA decided to re-align parts of the story in accordance with the RIAA motto, 'If The Truth Doesn't Fit - No Problem'. So "******" decided to ban the RIAA (and, for good measure, the MPAA) from its site via a simple .htaccess file. And it worked. Thirty-six times, in fact. "******" Bill Royale told us, A normal *month* usually gives us 33. I'd crunch those numbers more, but I'm wiped ..." In the meanwhile, "our traffic is still going up substantially each day!" Bill continues. "The last time I checked our site stats [July 23] we had hit 5312 downloads. Not bad - the number of daily downloads actually doubled today. "Support for the effort has been great - I've seen a few critical comments, but even those have been very mild. I've gotten a ton of emails on the issue, so much in fact that I'm behind a bit in responding to everyone! I'm doing all I can. "In terms of the steps we're now taking, we've set up a forum on the site just so people could work specifically on the .htaccess file and help each other out. In visiting sites around the net, I've seen people adding to the file, taking things out ... all sorts of stuff going on out there. I'm betting it's been a while since many of the webmasters out there have given much thought to .htaccess! That in itself is useful, as .htaccess can be a valuable tool in a site's security policy." Bill says a rough game plan is coming together with, naturally, 'open-source' as the key phrase. And, "the quality of the list is critical," he emphasises. "This effort will go nowhere if sites accidentally block out too much of a network. As a result, we'll need to establish some method of quality control for any file we put out. I'd like to see some inroads made between the P2P communities working on blocking and perhaps a few people working on the .htaccess file. "Most of the information needed can be interchanged, so I think it would be beneficial to all of us." In the meanwhile, the RIAA has apologised to "******" for using its Von Lohmann story out of context. Says RIAA suitperson Andy Tweiss ... Fat chance. Actually, "The RIAA hasn't contacted us to apologize," says Bill. "Even if an apology was to come, it would be irrelevant. The ban is non-negotiable on our site and this is the basic message we're trying to put across: "1. The RIAA tells users not to respect artistic work. While we don't claim to be artists at Techfocus, our content is our work. They violated our terms, and thus they did not respect our work. And they are supposed to be the protectors of intellectual property? "2. The RIAA said that they would not legally pursue individuals. They lied. How long is it until they start serving subpoenas on websites like ours to get the identities of users? What does a site owner do then? By blocking them pre-emptively. Cutting them off at the pass by using a technological measure (such as applying the htaccess method we use.) The Digital Millenium Copyright Act forbids them from circumventing a technological measure. Throw something in your footer that forbids them from access or put up the image suppled, and block their networks. As far as we can tell, if they still access your site, they are breaking their own favorite law. "3. This is all unnecessary. If the DMCA was able to establish a business model that was worth anything, they would be a lot more successful. I personally think Apple's iTunes service is a step in the right direction, but of course that market is essentially closed to the mass public as most don't use Apple. Why doesn't the RIAA approach this situation with a solution like that? It is clear that Apple's got it pretty much figured out - why can't a group representing an entire industry? If the RIAA focused on providing an alternative that respected fair use and spent less time on litigation, they might actually be successful in raising revenues."

[Larry_OHF]

In order to make as much news as possible available to our IW public, see this link, which is a news site for one of the file-sharing websites. There's alot of good reading there.

http://www.gnutellanews.com